Police launch inquiry after dead body ‘lay in Oslo flat for 9 years’

Oslo, where a body lay undiscovered in a flat for 9 years, police believe
Pixabay
John Dunne @jhdunne8 April 2021

Police in Norway are investigating how man’s body could have lay undiscovered in his Oslo flat for nine years.

The man had been in his 60s when he died and no-one reported him missing.

Officers found the body in December last year in an apartment block in the Norwegian capital.

The body was found when a caretaker needed to enter the apartment for maintenance work, according to the country’s broadcaster NRK.

Police say milk cartons and letters in the home suggested that the man had died in April 2011.

Oslo police inspector Grete Lien Metlid told NRK: “We have thought a lot about it, my colleagues and people who have worked with this for many years.

“This is a special case, and it makes us ask questions about how it could happen...based on the picture we have, it is obviously a person who has chosen to have little contact with others.”

An postmortem showed the man, who police say had been married a number of times and had children, had died from natural causes. A neighbour said: “He was not interested in talking to anyone.”

The Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV) stopped sending his pension in 2018 when they could not contact him, police said.

But because his expenses were being paid from automatic direct debits suspicions were not raised.

“All his expenses were paid automatically from his bank account, everything was automatic,” said Prof Arne Krokan at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

“That’s something that would not have happened in the past. So if something strange happens, it’s possible nobody will notice.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in